Netflix Plans To Crack Down On Password Sharing

By Emily LeeOct 22, 2019

Close up Netflix website in laptop screen. Netflix being popular internationally.

Netflix knows password sharing is rampant on their streaming platform. While there are no immediate plans to take action against sharing your Netflix password with a bunch of family members and friends, the streaming giant is considering cracking down on password sharing in the future.

According to the New York Post, Netflix product chief Greg Peters addressed the issue during the company's recent quarterly earnings call. “We continue to monitor [password sharing],” Peters reportedly said. “We’ll continue to look at the situation and we’ll see those consumer-friendly ways to push on the edge of that, but we’ve got no big plans at this point in time in terms of doing something different there.”

Netflix already limits the number of devices that are able to stream from on account, which helps password sharing from becoming a bigger issue for them. In the future, however, Netflix may begin limiting IP addresses on every subscribers accounts. This would limit the number of locations users are able to stream from. While limiting the number of IP addresses per account may seem appealing to Netflix, it may cause problems for families who don't live together. As of now, Netflix allows families to share one account throughout their "profiles" feature.

Netflix isn't the only streaming platform with plans to crack down on password sharing, either. It's been reported that Disney+ will be strict about how many users utilize one account on their platform. Disney is partnering with Charter Communications to "work together on piracy mitigation. The two companies will work together to implement business rules and techniques to address such issues as unauthorized access and password sharing.”